playaifc(1)playaifc(1)NAME
playaifc, playaiff - play an AIFF-C (or AIFF) audio sample file
SYNOPSIS
playaifc [options] filename [filename2 ...]
playaiff [options] filename [filename2 ...]
DESCRIPTION
playaifc parses AIFF-C (and/or AIFF) file(s) containing 8-bit or 16-bit
audio sample data (single channel, stereo, or 4-channel) and plays the
samples through the audio hardware. playaifc reads the contents of the
AIFF/AIFF-C Common and Sound Data chunks, and skips all other chunks. The
hardware sample rate is modified, if possible, so that it agrees with the
value in the Common chunk. By default, the hardware sample rate will not
be modified if another program is using an output audio port at a
conflictly rate. The -r (for "rude") option will override this behavior
and change the output sample rate regardless of output port use.
playaifc supports real-time decompression for G.711 mu-law mono or stereo
8-KHz, 16-bit data, and for G.722 mono or stereo 16-KHz data, 16-bit.
Note that the AIFF-C header identifier flags for these two compression
algorithms are currently recognized only by playaifc and other programs
written on top of the SGI audio file library. Note also that the Apple
proprietary compression schemes mentioned in the AIFF-C specification
cannot be decoded by SGI software. Consequently, AIFF-C files which are
moved between different system platforms should contain only
noncompressed audio sample data.
If everything parses correctly, playaifc returns a 0 value when it has
finished playing the input file(s). If there is an error, playaifc
returns 1.
Playaiff is a link to playaiff which is installed for backward
compatibility. The two programs behave identically except that playaiff
by default changes the output sample rate (equivalent to playaifc with
the -r option.
OPTIONS-h help: print a usage statement.
-v verbose: detail info to stdout.
-q quiet: suppress errors messages.
-d <device>
device: specify the audio device to which to direct output.
-p polite: before modifying the global output sample rate in the IRIS
Audio Processor, first check to see whether any other output ports
are currently active; if any other processes have open output ports,
don't modify the output rate
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playaifc(1)playaifc(1)-r rude: change the output sample rate regardless of output ports in
use
FILES
Source code for playaifc is installed here:
/usr/share/src/dmedia/soundcommands
BUGS
To play back files containing sample data which is compressed using
G.722, MPEG, or Aware algorithms, you will need to run playaifc with
nondegrading high priority (this is especially true for stereo compressed
data).
If being run as root, the priority is set to NDPNORMMAX which is the
highest normal process priority. If run as a user, the process is set to
the highest non-degrading priority allowed by the system. This parameter
is unfortunately by default lower than any normal process, but can be
changed using systune(1M). Alternately, see the man page npri(1) for
information about how to set custom priorities and time slices.
playaifc doesn't restore the hardware output sample rate to its original
value when it finishes playing the AIFF-C / AIFF sample data files.
SEE ALSOrecordaifc(1), apanel(1), aiff2aifc(1), aifcresample(1), aifccompress(1)
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